Issues...and this time..I'm opening up.

[Revelation]

[size=1][color=#696969]I was reading the "What are you afraid of?" thread and it got me thinking about the various things that I was afraid of and...well, I wasn't completely honest because I kept out the personal, "my issues" fears. But...this thread is asking for members of OB to give me advice and ways to help myself. And at some issues, I will ask the members what my "inner persona" is like, or something like that. I'm also asking if it is my fault this happened or some kind of resolution of some sort. With that said, let me introduce my "issues".

First off, I would like to say, if this thread is unnecessary and not permissible, than by all means close this. Secondly, if I get defensive, please do not take it to heart because what I am sharing pained me and gave me somewhat of a new persona. Thirdly, I would like to say that I will not tell the names of several people for the reason that they do not need to be names. Lastly, I would like to address my "issues" to the audience of OB now.

[B][U]Issue #1[/B][/U]
I used to have a close relationship with my brother when we were young. People would think that I was his older sister, when in fact I was the younger one. My mother dressed us in similar clothing, but different colors. She even gave us similar names. My brother is Eric, whereas, I am Erica. You can see the confusion that could be made. People even said that I looked just like my brother, his "younger twin" they called me. They knew I was his sister, but since I looked oddly like a female version of my brother, they thought me to be a twin, when I was a younger sibling. And like all siblings, we fought. Although we fought, we apologized, with our mother's help, and got over it quickly. It wasn't like us to be angry at each other for large amounts of time, unless one of us did something horrid to the other and made me cry or made him mad, but nonetheless, we never stayed angry. Even when my brother had gotten injured and was taken to the hospital, I was there for him, never getting angry, keeping my patience if he was rude or mean to me.

You see, when my brother was in the 5th grade, he had gotten into an accident and had ruptured most of his kidney. The 5th graders were playing TAG and he had jumped off of the playground gym and caught himself on a pole, but didn't manage to keep himself safe and had hit his left or right kidney against these circular, plastic steps. He was taken to the hospital urgently and my mother and father were called and I was taken to a friend's home, waiting for a call from my mom or a visit.

While my brother was in ICU, Intensive Care Unit, my family visited him, myself included. My parents were told that he had lost a large amount of blood from the internal damage. They were told that he could not participate in body contact sports because of the injured kidney, as well as his high-blood pressure. But, as time passed on, he had to take Ritalin after his injury. I didn't know what Ritalin was at first, because I was young. Later on, I learned that Ritalin was a medicinal drug used for individuals, particularly children, who had an "abnormally high level of activity or attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)." This was normally "characterized by agitated behavior and an inability to focus on tasks." It was also a drug prescribed to treat some cases of narcolepsy, which is "A disorder characterized by sudden and uncontrollable, though often brief, attacks of deep sleep, sometimes accompanied by paralysis and hallucinations.", which is something that my brother does not have, well...deep sleep maybe, and perhaps some paralysis around his lower abdoment, but other than that, no hallucination. Anyways, he took Ritalin and for quite some time, he was less rambunctious, a bit more mellow and calm. He was the exact opposite of me, which was loud, talkative, hyper. Pretty soon, my mother made me take this because she thought that I was having trouble with ADHD and/or high levels of activity. After a while, I stopped taking it because my mother didn't think I needed it, as did my brother. We were both at an age, where we were able to control ourselves, most of the time. I was also at the age where people began to talk about my brother. They would say things like, "Your brother's stupid. You know that? He needs to take Ritalin again." or things like, "What a ***. Tell your brother he needs to go smoke crack." and things like, "You know that Ritalin's for kids that aren't smart, right?" Things that just insulted my brother in any way possible. I stayed quiet most of the time, I didn't care that they said those things. But...it got to me. And so, since they said those things, I said something about my old church's youth group member. We were passing by this school, Mary's School for Boys or something of other, and I told the member's sister, "I think your brother and his friend needs to go there." She laughed with me and we sat in the car, with her mother as she drove us to her home.

Later on, as the days passed, her brother and his "group" came to me and asked me why I had said that. At that time, I didn't care what they were going to do and I did not care that he had a group around, and I still don't care. I straightened up and said, "You do need help. I said it 'cause you said all that crap about my brother." And the Youth member just tried to tower over me, tried to scare me, but I wasn't going to give in. I stood there with my arms crossed and just retaliated. This went a while, until my name was called and I excused myself from the brats who stood before me.

My brother is capable of defending himself, but he wishes not. I don't know why, but I don't care because all I think is of how people keep saying all these awful things about my brother. They have no right to say those things. It makes me so infuriating to hear all these people say these things. I get extremely defensive and begin to curse and retaliate every word that people say, yet I insult my brother as well. I fight with him constantly and call him a dumbass and things like that. I even say, "Nobody likes you. You don't have friends." Maybe it's the fact that people tell me my brother is annoying and that they don't like him, but... I don't know. Over the last few years, I have no idea what happened, but we began to grow apart. We lost the close connection that we had several years ago. *sigh* What I am trying to say is that, my issue is that my brother and I lost the close relationship we had. I try to regain that relationship with him, but no matter what I do, he just brings up things that he doesn't need to bring up. For instance, he says, "Why should I be nice to her when she's not nice to me?" or things like, "Tell her to respect me and I'll be nice." He even blames things on me when it's his own fault that he had gotten in trouble. And he mumbles rude things about me under his breath. He just pisses me off sometimes, but I put up with it, because he's my brother. I really don't want that kind of stress and I really don't want that kind of f'ed up relationship.[/size][/color]

[Rachael]

Me and my sister fight constantly and were always pissed at each other but it doesn't last. she is 20 and im 15. I don't know the age difference or your ages but i think we may have relativley the same thing. I love my sister to death but everytime were in the same room tempers flare and we storm off. I'll admit its mostly cause by me. I just get this feeling to rebel against my sister saying stuff like " you did that to me so i can do that to you...." when we were younger we were so close people couldn't tell us apart either due to the fact that we both had blonde hair sometimes people thought i was the oldest. We have our moments though nowadays when we just hang out and talk about stuff. We may not have the same closeness that we did when we were little kids but we have a different kind of closeness now (cept I keep ruining it cus im just a 15 year old gurl that just wants to argue with her sister for the heck of it) I'm trying to say that even though you think that you guys aren't as close as you were before you still have that closeness somewhere. I think hes trying to figure out his life or something (maybe hes kinda like me: the rebeling 15 year old) its not a nice idea knowing you have to take any type or drug daily.

I'm positive whatever you guys had....it'll come back, just give it time.